Charlie Whelan

Aidan Burley, the Tory MP who bought a Nazi uniform for a friend to wear at a stag party, is presumably relieved by the conclusions of a report by Lord Gold, a Tory peer who was asked by the party to look into the affair. He concluded Mr Burley “is not a bad man, still less a racist or an anti-Semite” but he is stupid.

LABOUR HAS admitted that it will lose the next general election unless the Cabinet ends the divisions that have provoked Tony Blair's biggest crisis since he won power. The warning is contained in an internal memo from senior party officials to staff at Labour's Millbank headquarters in London, outlining the party's strategy for winning a second term.

CHARLIE WHELAN'S resignation as aide to Gordon Brown casts doubt over the competence of the entire Blair administration. In a well run government, the fate of a press secretary should not make any difference to day-to-day business: actual policies, affecting the lives of every citizen, should dominate the minds of ministers.

A CABINET dispute deepened yesterday over whether Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, should dismiss his controversial press secretary after allegations that he played a part in the downfall of Peter Mandelson.

GORDON BROWN is expected to back his controversial press secretary Charlie Whelan when the Cabinet next meets on 14 January. Several ministers are expected to demand that the Chancellor sack Mr Whelan from his job at the Treasury because of allegations that he was involved in the downfall of the former Trade and Industry Secretary, Peter Mandelson.

PETER MANDELSON'S unofficial biographer claimed last night that he had decided not to publish details of the home loan that led to the former cabinet minister's resignation but they were leaked from a draft copy of the book.

IF CHARLIE Whelan did not exist, it would, be necessary for the Government to invent him. This convenient Beelzebub has been identified as the source of the revelations of Peter Mandelson's home-loan arrangements without anything as vulgar as proof. "The Government will not be held to ransom by one little oik," was Number 10's word to that newspaper of New Labour record, The Sun. The Blairites always call Mr Whelan an oik. It is practically a registered code.